Searching for Jobs Online?

Embedded Geek asks: "My wife, a VB/C/C++/SQL coder, was recently laid off from our mutual employer and is on the job hunt. I am also sending around feelers. We've posted both our resumes at our own site (here and here) and at Monster.Com. So far, we have gotten disappotinting results - several headhunters generating a lot of smoke but no heat. Some people have suggested dice.com and other techie oriented sites, but I wonder if we're going about this the wrong way. Are we better off using the Internet to directly find and reach companies (I really dislike headhunters)? Should we find a site affiliated with a major newspaper's want ads? Has anyone out there found other strategies to using the Internet in a job search?"

This related submission from kalanar asks a similar question, but questions whether exclusive online searches are the answer: "With the current economy state, and the increase in unemployment in the US, I'm curious if anyone has had luck with onlinejobsearchengines. I have applied to many job listing (80+) and have not received much of a reply. I'm curious if employers are worried about the relocation factor or if employers are more anxious to hire people that have applied in other ways. (Fax/Inperson)"

So if you are recently employed, especially in the US, what strategies did you use to land your current job?

Comments

It's all about the network

[andy@petdance.com]

The most important network is your own network of huamn contacts. It's all about who you know and how you work your angles. Get the word out there. Let people know you're looking.

Go thru your Rolodex and hit the phones. Past bosses and colleagues, regardless of how long ago they were, are prime sources for leads.

Don't forget your family and the people they know. Chat people up. Talk talk talk. The best jobs aren't going to be found in the want ads.

Last person I helped land a job was because I saw her reading Webmaster In a Nutshell on a commuter train, and I asked if she was lookin'. She was, and she was good, so we hired her.

Find a headhunter you like, if that's possible. If you're great, they'll do the work for you, and get you in the doors. Just make sure that the job is the right fit.

I'm not saying to ignore postings, whether online or in print, but they're nothing compared to talking to other humans.

Re:Direct contact with companies

[andy@petdance.com]

Why do you think you wouldn't still go to the Chamber of Commerce? That's why they're there: To help businesses grow. What better way to help a business grow than to help them get good talent?

Contacting, or better yet visiting, the CoC also has the advantage of letting you talk to a human and get those all-important contacts.

While you're at it, run out and get copies of The Brand You 50 by Tom Peters, and Ask The Headhunter by Nick Corcodilos. They're all about selling yourself as more than just a bunch of accomplishments and skills.

Be careful of head hunters

[Giggles Of Doom]

I suppose the best thing to do would be as many as possible out of those options. Search the net, mail resumes, look up in the paper, and let headhunters know you're available. Be a bit careful of them, though. I used one to get my current job and they tend to ignore me for months at a time, plus they can't write performance reviews or letters of recomendation after the contract expires. They never see you work, after all.
Also, make sure you follow up on resumes you've sent. Just because you send them one doesn't mean they'll look at it. Often this can be as easy as an email to the HR staff. In addition, I've found that a lot of times when dealing with online listings its better to send the resume and then call the contact right away (or even before) to get more details on the job, if they're still hiring, and mayeb even to send them a nice printed copy of your resume. Don't be a pest, but don't let them forget about you either.
All in all, if you need work, look everywhere. Chances are you don't have much else to do anyway. That, and follow up on everything you send and you should find your way to employment soon.

Nepotism

[EEEthan]

I got my job through a friend who left it. I really don't think that any method compares to the person-to-person hookup, when the two people actually know each other.

I know a lot of people who've used online job search engines, and very few of them have gotten good results. It's a very obvious place to start these days, and I don't think that an email application impresses anyone these days. Also it seems that a lot of online openings are stale--just left over from a position that might already be filled, or might never be filled.

But good luck in your search!

I recently landed a job via online search

[renehollan]

I registered with a bunch of sites: dice, computerjobs, monster, probably a few others, as well as hit the job search engines. It is a royal pain to enter data for each one. (note to self: develop a resume XML DTD).

It took from May 15th to the last week of June (about) to land a position. In that time, I got about 1/2 dozen calls, two interviews, and two offers, both sent my way by headhunters. None of my personal applications panned out. So, my "saturation" technique didn't result in what I'd consider excessive interest -- you just never know who uses what job engine or site.

I ended up accepting a position near Dallas, TX, and moved from Chicago, IL. Employer payed a flat rate toward moving expenses and left me to deal with the logistics (the allowance was generous, but the headache of dealing with all the logistics was a pain -- apparently outsourcing that kind of stuff is expensive).

Now, my case might be atypical, because in addition to all the other problems related to the downturn in the economy, I required visa sponsorship. Still, I found and got a job I liked using only on-line resources.

FlipDog helped me (and their technology is cool!)

[bruckie]

When I went to college in fall of 2000, I decided to get a part-time job. I had worked for the previous year doing contract programming at a large chip company, and I had started my own small online (and profitable) business. However, I had just moved to a different city, and I didn't really know anyone who could get me a tech job.

I decided that an online search just might do the trick. Monster.com yielded nothing interesting, nor did HotJobs. As I was walking home from class one day I saw a billboard ad for FlipDog, and decided to try it.

After a quick and easy search focused down very specifically by city and job category, I found about four relevant jobs within three miles of my home. After a bit of resume touch-up, I e-mailed my resume to the interesting-looking employers. I received two e-mails back, one with an interview offer. I called the company and scheduled it for the next day.

In short, I had a job three days after my search on FlipDog.

As an aside to the story, FlipDog has some very cool technology developed at WhizBang! Labs. WhizBang! was headquartered in the same city that I attended school, and I got to go to a lecture about them. They have their web spiders crawl the web looking for job listings on companies' own sites. Then they use machine learning software to recognize and extract information (job title, location, description, etc.) from the free-form web page. That gets dumped into a database that FlipDog uses to help you find a job. Instead of making employers post available jobs on a special job site, FlipDog goes to the employers' own web sites and extracts job postings. Very cool. Check it out. (No, I'm not affiliated with them, except that they helped me find a job.)